Obama’s rock-star tour is done. The foreign cheering has abated. Unseemly’s what we thought it was. We’d like a President who’s hated.
Great adulation from abroad Should not by Presidents be prized. We are the leaders of the world. Our President should be despised.
It’s better when he’s thought to be A threat to peace and rather slow, When animosity’s so strong There’re many places he can’t go.
Then he can say to leaders when There’s something that we hope they’ll do, “Associate yourself with me And you, then, can be hated too.”
Calvin TrillinCalvin Trillin is The Nation’s “deadline poet.”